Investigating The Effectiveness of The 9-Stage Cycle Teaching Model (9E) In Science Teaching on Students' Conceptual Understanding And Academic Motivation

In all developing countries, science education is considered one of the most important cornerstones of sustainable development and special attention is paid to it. If the quality of science education is favorable; Today's students, who form the main body of tomorrow's society, do not stay away from the cycle of education, progress, coordination and synchronization with scientific and industrial development, and they find the ability to step by step with the global development of science and information industry. to develop and update and finally be citizens who are compatible with the changing society (Shafii Sarostani, & Daraei emarati , 2021). The changes in today's world have made the learning of learners face with transformation (Andini, Hedayat, Fazleh and Permana, 2018). Experimental science as an applied science is known as the basis of inventions and discoveries and has affected various aspects of life, especially in industrialized countries, and has become one of the competitive issues among countries. International associations and centers have also conducted comparative studies in order to improve the curriculum of experimental sciences in different countries. The Thames studies, as the largest and most important international comparative study, is one of the most important fields of competition between countries. The main goal of the Timms study is to gain a deeper understanding of how students master the content, concepts, and methods of mathematics and science that countries expect to learn in elementary and secondary schools. With repetitive questions, TEAMS provides the possibility to check the process and compare the performance of students (Jaafari, Kiamenesh and Karimi, 2017). The evaluation results of these studies in 2015 have shown that Iran ranked 27 out of 39 in eighth grade science and 43 out of 47 in fourth grade science among countries (Martin, Mollis, Foy and Stenko, 2016), which confirms the poor performance and It is very low among Iranian students compared to other countries (Kiamenesh, 2006). Traditional teaching approaches are still used in science classes in primary schools. In a teacher-centered class, students listen to the teacher's explanations of concepts without participating in learning. This issue is a common procedure for students who passively receive the information provided by the teacher in a classroom and consider what the teacher says as the final truth (Karpodovan, Zain, and Chandrasagaran, 2017). Today, instead of relying on passive methods, teachers in their classrooms should try to create a constructive and purposeful interaction between them and students. A good teaching method guarantees learning, and choosing a suitable teaching method with the content is one of the main pillars of good learning. Nowadays, the most important goals of education and meaningful learning cannot be achieved by using traditional teaching methods that only emphasize on the reservations of the learner and the passive student and the teacher is the only active element of the class. One of the goals of current education is to help learners so that they can use their knowledge effectively, and since the life of every field of human knowledge is constantly shortened and new rules are constantly replacing them, Therefore, learners should be equipped with learning knowledge and skills so that they never get stuck. Achieving these goals requires the use of active and new methods in teaching. Among these methods is the learning cycle model (9E), which is based on the constructivist approach, and its purpose is to help students give meaning and understand scientific ideas, improve their scientific reasoning, and increase participation. They are in class. This model helps students to understand the content and apply scientific concepts and processes in real situations and creates suitable conditions to display their thoughts and ideas, which is an important factor in the success of science. Students are in science class. In this model, with the support of the teacher, instead of emphasizing the correct answers, the students focus on the thinking process, and this improves their academic motivation, increases their activity and learning. Most of the researches conducted with cyclical teaching model (9E) have been done to determine its effectiveness on improving self-efficacy, mathematical reasoning ability and problem solving skills; Therefore, it is necessary to study the effect of this method on other variables, such as conceptual understanding and academic motivation, which was the aim of this research. Also, the researches conducted in the field of teaching and teaching the content of the fifth grade textbooks, especially the science course, have been studied mostly by cyclic models (5E) and (7E), which lacks internal research done with the teaching model. Cyclical (9E) and the need to pay attention to students' understanding of concepts as much as possible and deeper, creating academic motivation in them doubled the necessity of conducting this research. Therefore, The aim of the current research was to determine the effectiveness of the 9-stage cyclical teaching model (9E) in science teaching on conceptual understanding and academic motivation. The research method was a semi-experimental type, in which a pre-test-post-test design with a control group was used. The statistical population includes all fifth grade male students of West Azarbaijan province; Khoy city was in the academic year of 2021-2022, from which 60 students were selected by cluster sampling method and assigned to two experimental and control groups. The research tools included a teacher-made conceptual understanding test and Harter's academic motivation questionnaire. All subjects of the experimental and control groups were evaluated before and after the training using a teacher-made conceptual understanding test and an academic motivation questionnaire. The subjects of the experimental group received 9-step cycle teaching model (9E) in science lesson for twelve 45-minute teaching sessions. The control group also received the traditional (usual) teaching method at the same time. Data analysis was done with various descriptive and inferential statistical methods and techniques, including mean, standard deviation, covariance analysis and using spss26 software. The findings showed the positive effect of the 9-step cyclical teaching model (9E) on the conceptual understanding and academic motivation of the students, which has led to a significant improvement in the conceptual understanding and academic motivation of the experimental group compared to the control group.